Vicky Leoni
Vicky Leoni, later Vicky McGowan was a young woman who was paralysed from the waist down after a car accident supposedly caused by her friend Angus Bistrong in 1978. In 2005, she would learn that the car accident itself had not been the cause of her injury and that Angus' search for the truth led to his murder. History Vicky was the daughter of Alex Leoni and older sister to Devon Leoni. Vicky and Devon were raised alone by their father after their mother died early. Throughout high school and college, Vicky was part of a close group of friends that included Angus, Craig, and Donna. Though Vicky and Craig started dating, Angus had loved Vicky "since the ninth grade", he would later say. In the spring of 1978, while the four friends were out, Vicky asked if she could ride in Angus' car, rather than with Craig on his motorcycle, wanting to make Craig jealous. Craig scoffed at Angus' older car, calling it a "beater", and instead took Donna, who was herself interested in Craig. Vicky, wanting to show up Craig, urged Angus to race him. Angus' car easily outran Craig's bike, but Angus didn't see a truck pulling out of a driveway until it was too late, and the car flipped over. Angus crawled out of the car in a daze, but Vicky was trapped by her seatbelt and smoke started coming out of the engine. Firefighters arrived and one of them, Ian McGowan, used the jaws of life to cut Vicky free. Ian kept a close vigil over Vicky at the hospital. Vicky remembered little about the accident itself. After it became apparent that Vicky would be confined to a wheelchair for life, her friends and family blamed Angus for driving too fast. Vicky herself however, would continue seeing Angus and did not hold a grudge at all. Partly because he was the only one not to treat her differently afterwards (as opposed to Craig, who drifted away in the following months and started dating Donna), and partly because she blamed herself for having egged Angus on in the car. Angus' feelings for Vicky never diminished and that October, he asked her to marry him. Fearful of how her friends and family would react to this, she wrote him a letter telling him he didn't know what that would mean. On the evening of October 29, Vicky invited Angus, along with Craig and Donna to see the movie Halloween. They appeared to get on well, but after Vicky's father arrived to pick her up, Craig told Angus in no uncertain terms that things would never be like they were before. An hour later, however, Angus showed up on Vicky's doorstep, asking her again to marry him. Vicky tried to tell him that "things don't work right anymore" and that he was only asking out of guilt. Angus insisted that he did love her, saying that, although he admitted to being "a geek" and that Vicky deserved better, that perhaps the two of them together was right after all. Vicky was moved by Angus' sincere words, until Devon walked up and told Angus to leave, threatening to wake up their father if he didn't leave. Vicky would never see Angus again. He was stabbed to death later that night. The police quickly arrested Eddie Foster, a disturbed individual who had stabbed and killed a girl in Grays Ferry the night before while dressed as Michael Myers from Halloween. Foster would later kill himself a week before his trial. Vicky had her own suspicions however. The day after Angus' murder, Vicky found a ten inch steak knife in the hall closet that had been wiped, leaving a bloody residue. Remember how angry her father had been with Angus, she suspect him of having killed him. She didn't tell anyone what she saw, but moved out soon after and stopped talking to him. Ian would remain a constant presence in her life however, and the two eventually married. Unable to have children of her own, Vicky eventually became a kindergarten teacher, and was loved by her students. In 2005, Angus mother Elena Bistrong found the letter Vicky had written to Angus and convinced Detective Lilly Rush to reopen Angus' case. When Lilly and Scotty Valens questioned Vicky and Ian, Vicky vocally defended Angus when Lilly suggested he'd been driving too fast and told them how Craig had been the hardest on Angus after the accident. After Craig revealed to Detectives Nick Vera and Josie Sutton that Ian had in fact been the fireman who had saved Vicky, Ian was questioned again by Lilly and Scotty. Concerned when she heard detectives were questioning her husband, Vicky headed to the police station and showed them the knife she'd found years earlier. Alex and later Devon were questioned about the knife. It would turn out DEvon had wanted to dress up like Michael Myers for Halloween and that the knife had been part of his costume. The bloody residue was simply costume blood. After detectives questioned Craig again, he admitted he'd been paralysed with fear the day of the accident leaving him unable to help Vicky. He did recall that she cried out, saying her leg hurt, and attempted to kick off her seat belt until Ian arrived with the jaws of life. It was this that made Lilly realize the car accident had not paralysed Vicky. Lilly and Scotty went to Ian and Vicky's house one final time and confronted him what they'd learned. Faced with the truth, Ian admitted to Vicky what had really happened that day. Desperate to get Vicky out of the car before it caught fire, Ian had overzealously used to jaws of life to open the jammed door, but in doing so, he had knocked her forward, crushing her spine. Lilly and Scotty then confronted Ian about Angus' murder. A residue identified as elkskin had been found on Angus' body. Though the most common use for elkskin was in motorcycle gloves, which had initially cast suspicion on Craig, the other use was in fire. Ian confessed to the detectives and a horrified Vicky that Angus had come to his apartment to confront him, having done research on firefighting equipment, and had figured out what had really caused Vicky's injury. Angus tried to appeal to Ian to take responsibility so that Angus and Vicky could be happy together but Ian refused. They argued and Ian picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed Angus twice, leaving him in an area where his body would be linked to the Grays Ferry murder. Ian was arrested, but Vicky soon found solace in being reuinited with her father and brother at long last. Leoni, Vicky